a) Field of the Invention
The invention concerns a method of encoding signals, in particular digitized audio signals, with an encoding device for encoding the signal in an encoding format and a processing device for processing the encoded signal.
b) Description of the Related Art
Methods of that kind are known for example from European patent specification No 290 581. In that case, in the bit rate-reducing encoding of audio signals which are already present in digitized form, for example 48 kHz sampling frequency/16-bit resolution, psycho-acoustic phenomena of the perception of audio signals are used in such a way that the original bit rate of the audio signals is considerably reduced. Such methods are also familiar and standardized under the heading of ‘source encoding’ (ISO 11172 and 11318).
With some encoding methods there is also the option of encoding the signal in a given transmission or storage format in order then to be able to transmit and/or store the signal. That encoding however frequently gives rise to the necessity for the signals to be re-coded in regard to the transmission or storage format used as the transmission channel which is then actually employed or the storage device which is actually used employs another encoding format. If the necessary re-coding algorithms for re-coding the signal for adaptation to the actual encoding format are not available, the result of this is that complete decoding of the signal into a linear, non-data-reduced format and subsequent encoding to the desired format have to be implemented. That frequently results in quality losses of greater or lesser severity. Either that expensive path is adopted or adaptation is not possible.